Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has appointed lawyer Juan Paolo “John” Fajardo as deputy commissioner of the National Privacy Commission (NPC), replacing fellow lawyer Nerissa de Jesus whose term of office has expired.
Fajardo brings to the post a mix of academic specialization in information privacy and experience in technology-related legal work.
He holds a Master of Laws from Columbia Law School in New York, where he focused on information privacy, antitrust, intellectual property, and international business transactions.
He obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of the Philippines College of Law, where he served as president of the Philippine Law Journal. He earned his undergraduate degree in Economics from Ateneo de Manila University.
Prior to his appointment, Fajardo was a partner at Fajardo Law Offices, handling civil, criminal, and commercial litigation alongside corporate, ICT, and data-privacy matters. His earlier career included a stint as consultant under the Office of the Commissioner at the NPC from 2016 to 2017.
He also taught at the Lyceum of the Philippines College of Law and is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals.
His entry into the NPC leadership comes at a time when the commission is grappling with increasingly complex data-governance issues, including cross-border data transfers, regulation of digital platforms, and the growing use of artificial intelligence in both public- and private-sector systems.
Fajardo is also a member of the Sigma Rho fraternity of the UP College of Law, the same organization to which newly appointed NPC commissioner Johann Carlos S. Barcena and Department of Information and Communications Technology secretary Henry Aguda belong.
